People hanging at the end of their career rope want a fast track out of an intolerable situation. So they find a new job, turn in their notice and jump ship. Freedom at last! Unfortunately many discover an unwelcome stowaway snuck in their boxes on that last day at work: the problem came along with them.

“I can’t take this job any more. I am working over 60 hours a week and still never get caught up. The demands here are ridiculous and my efforts are never really recognized. I almost walked out twice last week. I need to find a better job NOW!”

“I have totally lost interest in my work. The people are nice and the pay is good but I just can’t get fired up about my career anymore. I used to be really excited about my job but now I don’t even want to go to work. A promotion just passed me by and I didn’t even care. I’ve decided to leave and start a business.”

“This company is so screwed up. They keep making bad decisions and just sent half my team’s jobs overseas. They are always trying “new” things that are really just how we were doing them five years ago, and they didn’t work then either! My boss is an idiot and my teammates are always trying to get me to do their work. As soon as I find something else, I’m outta here!”

Don’t get me wrong. Change is good. The slowest road to promotion, top salary and high job satisfaction is to stay in the same job or company year after year. But when change is driven by the need to escape from a bad job, you often miss the mark. This “move away from” strategy has several major flaws:

First – you assume that you are not part of the problem and miss out on learning an important lesson or two. Maybe you are working 60 hours a week and being taken advantage of by your team members because you haven’t learned the art of saying NO when you should. Maybe you are overly resistant to change or tend to blame others when things go wrong. You can run but you cannot hide from yourself. These issues will keep cropping up no matter where you go!

Second – you move to the opposite end of the spectrum, assuming things will have to be better there. If you think your boss is demanding, just wait until you become your own boss! While a 60+ hour job is a huge challenge, a really boring job with no overtime can be twice as draining. Two years later you’ll be on the job hunt path again.

Third – you don’t take the time to figure out what you really want. Trial and error is a common method and many people spend their whole lives searching for the perfect job without taking time to stop and think about what it really is. If you don’t know what you want, you’ll never find it.

Ready to look before you leap?

Steps for a successful exit strategy:

1. Own your part of the problem. Job issues are never one-sided and righteous indignation just gets in the way of seeing how you contribute. Even if leaving your job is ultimately a good strategy for you, stick around long enough to use your current challenge as a learning opportunity. As in the examples above, you may choose to develop stronger boundaries, improve your communication skills or learn how to adapt effectively to a rapidly changing environment. Changing your approach often dramatically improves the situation.
2. Check your attitude. A bad attitude feeds off of itself and makes things unnecessarily worse. Once you begin to use this job as a training ground for the next one, you can move your energy from hating your current situation to seeing it as a way to prepare for the next one. Done well, this attitude shift buys you the time and energy you need to do it right.
3. Design your next job purposefully and from a positive perspective. Rather than focusing on what you don’t want, consider all the criteria that you need for a great job match. Begin by designing a perfect day at work, right down to the last detail! Here are some ideas to get you started: role, work hours, commute, challenge, flexibility, work environment, team dynamics, promotion opportunities, travel, skills used, pace of change.
4. Use your shopping list of perfect job criteria to measure each potential opportunity against what you really want.

Now you have a “move towards” strategy and are prepared to seek out new roles, new jobs, and new careers that really fit. Now you can take this job and love it!

Resources:

Check out this Business Week article for some important things to consider before you go job hopping.

Read Manage Your Attitude and Advance in Life, an article by John Alston

A personalized career assessment can provide great insights into your optimal work style and environment. View a sample career assessment Career Plannning Insights report. Contact the Transitions For Business office to order yours today!

Develop your perfect job criteria using this Job Satisfactions and Values checklist.